Brian Boyce
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — As the old saying goes, every dog has his day.
And on Feb. 6, Sanjo Sin City Slicker had a big one.
“As far as bird dog competitions go, this is really the highest level,” owner Steve Harrold said inside his barber shop on South Seventh Street.
Last month, Sanjo Sin City Slicker, a German Shorthaired Pointer, was posthumously inducted into Field Trial Hall of Fame at the National Bird Dog Museum in Grand Junction, Tenn. Harrold, surrounded by trophies and national championship ribbons, said the fact that only two dogs are inducted each year makes the feat particularly memorable.
“I really started competing back in the early ‘80s,” he said, adding he’s been working with dogs “forever.”
Now 60, the barber with a master’s degree in art said his grandfather got him started hunting as a boy, mostly rabbits and small game. “And one day I hunted over a bird dog, and that was about all she wrote.”
Harrold competes on his horse, a Tennessee Walker, while running a two-dog team called a “brace.” Officials judge how well the competitor and dogs hunt and carry a variety of birds.
“They use different species,” he said of the hunts, explaining the use of quail, pheasant and chuckers. “It’s about the size of a grouse, halfway between a pheasant and a quail,” he said of the chucker, a bird typically found in the western states.
Some of the competitions range out over 300 acres, and Harrold has gone as far as Arizona to participate.
Sanjo Sin City Slicker was whelped March 22, 1984 in Kokomo, the product of mating Sanjo’s Blue Bayou and Kiss Me Kate. Beginning in 1985, he began his competitive career, taking second in the derby stakes at the Buckeye, Ohio, and Four Lakes German Shorthaired Pointer Club, along with a second at the Hilltop Pointer and Setter Club. Championships included an all-age title at the Four Lakes as well as the Region 2 National German Shorthaired Pointer Association (NGSPA) All-Age Championship.
From a breeder’s standpoint, according to information in the Field Dog Stud Book, Sanjo Sin City Slicker sired 20 winners with a total of 238 victories, making for a production win record “without equal.” In addition to the 1998 NGSPA Open Shooting Dog Champion and the 1999 NGSPA Open Shooting Dog Runner-up, he sired 10 American Kennel Club Field Champions, four Amateur Field Champions and one Dual Champion.
Harrold pointed to paintings of bird dogs he’s done himself that now hang in his barber shop.
“The paintings are a pleasant way to starve to death,” the hunter joked, ready to cut some hair.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
